


The Trouble With Redheads

by WinterSwallow



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: A crash course on how to identify fish people, And the Beach Boys, Espionage, F/M, Sexpionage, The possible existence of squid men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 01:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8037355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterSwallow/pseuds/WinterSwallow
Summary: Gordon takes his first stumbling steps at WASP, with help from a trio of redheads and one very important blonde.





	The Trouble With Redheads

**Author's Note:**

> This has actually been published before as part of my longer fic, That Which Tears Us Apart, Ties Us Together AKA Boys Become Thunderbirds, but it now also forms a pretty pair with Blondes Have More Fun, by ferociously talented PreludeinZ, who has flattered me greatly by writing a sister fic to it, and so I've stuck it up seperately with very minor tweaks
> 
> This is pretty stand alone, and you don't need to go back and read 60,000 words of Boys Become Thunderbirds, then all you really need to know is that a very young Gordon has signed up to WASP under assumed name with a little help from John. If you want to know WHY you can read about that in the rest of That Which Tears Us Apart, Ties Us Together. 
> 
> It's probably best to read Redheads first though, then Blondes.

There’s no getting away from it. WASP has problems.

His superior officer totally has it out for him. His fellow cadets have all dropped their sense of humour down a sea trench. His teachers think irony is that element that comes before cobalt in the periodic table, and their supreme commander makes Dad look like a paragon of fatherly virtue and is, it is alleged, secretly preparing his organisation for the day when the world is invaded by marauding merfolk.

In the not quite a week since he’s been stationed at the World Aquanautic Pacific Rim Naval Base and Research Institute, more affectionately known as The Conch, Gordon’s learned more than he ever hoped to about navigation, scouting, aquanautics and marine geology and also more than he ever wanted to about petty bureaucracy, tedious procedure and whether or not all fish men have visible gills. It turns out, he’s recently learned over the course of a stultifying two hour lecture, not all of them do.

All this, he’s trying to explain to the new cadet. Which is weird, because all she asked him was the way to Mess Hall Seven.

They are standing at an intersection in the Conch’s lower levels, where he found her trying to decipher one of the digi-plans. She’s just off the transport from Marineville, she tells him, having obtained special dispensation to complete her paramedic training before joining the other cadets for basic training, and she’s finding the whole place totally bewildering.

He shoots her a smile, medium wattage ‘coz there’s no smiling at WASP and tries to reassure her. “Don’t worry about it. I was like that to when I first got here too.”

And that’s kind of a lie, but only kind of, because Gordon Tracy has a brother who sent him a schematic of The Conch and told him to memorise it, and Gordon Tracy spent the flight from Orlando to Seattle doing just that because Dad always said, know your environment, and yes, Gordon Tracy probably now knows his way around the Conch better than most long term residents, but he’s not Gordon Tracy right now. He’s Cooper Waverly, plucky, twenty-one year old former lifeguard from Nantucket, with a degree in Aquaculture and a lifelong desire to become one of WASP’s finest.

And Cooper Waverly, he has decided, has a thing for redheads.

Flipping both of his food trays into one hand – no easy feat he hopes she notices – he manipulates the digiplan. He ditches the junk – officers’ only quarters, air duct schematics, in case of giant squid attack escape routes – until he has the plan dialled down to a basic schematic. He marks an X on the map with his thumb. “See, it’s right here?”

She glances up at him and smiles. “Right.”

Did he mention that she’s a couple of inches shorter than him, which is _amazing_. All the girls in Tallahassee were swimmers, and they all had those long swimmers’ limbs and, look, his father and brothers are all reaching for six foot, okay, he just hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet, okay, and maybe it’s nice sometimes to have a girl look up at you instead of down her nose like every other girl you know, _okay_?

And he wasn’t smelling her hair when she glanced at her feet, okay. He was just noticing the colour and marvelling how the same shade that makes older brothers look like overgrown carrots, can make girls look so incredible.  
She’s probably a couple of years older than him. But then everyone round here is older than him. And she’s not older than Cooper Waverly.

“Oh, yah, I guess it’s not that fah afta all,” she says, examining the map. She also has this amazing Southie accent, which is totally adorable, while somehow also being the sexiest thing he has ever heard.

“Yah… I mean, yeah. You’re almost there.” He gets her to hold out her wrist and loads the schematic into her p-comm. Her tag reads Cadet Schloss-Krunfield, but there’s no way that he can think of her as that, so he decides in his head she’s going to be Red.

“You’re not coming to mess, are ya?” She asked a little hopefully, “Only I don’t know anyone and I thaught maybe we could…”

He puts up his free hand to stop her before the temptation becomes too much. “Sorry, wish I could but I’m assigned to Mess Eight. And,” he brandishes his tray, “I gotta go meet someone.”

“Aw, right, course,” Does he imagine the disappointment? “Then, it was good to meetya. Maybe we’ll see each other again.” She remembers an awkward salute.

He can’t return the salute without firing chicken Vindaloo all over himself, her and the ceiling, so he has to nod instead. “I hope so.”

“Bye.” He gets to watch her leave. Better yet he gets to watch her stop at the corner and glance back, and he gets to see her blush when he catches her looking. _Alright._

He grins – _this is WASP, Cadet Waverly, there’s no smiling at WASP_ – remembers to turn it down a notch and continues on his way.

Okay, so maybe WASP isn’t all bad.

Whistling, he makes for an access elevator and hits the button for the lowest level, switching his trays from hand to hand.

The Conch is an enormous superstructure on an artificial island rising out of the Equatorial Pacific. It had once belonged to Sharpo Pseuss, a tech billionaire with ambitions even more maniacal than Dad’s, who had intended it be the cradle of Newtopia, Pseuss’s new, perfect Libertarian society. When the Global Conflict had broken out, Pseuss had seen the opportunity to exercise his right to personal happiness and tried to kickstart Newtopia by shooting off a couple of HALO missiles in the direction of his nearest neighbour, in this case Hawaii.

How those missiles had been disarmed and Pseuss left hogtied on the steps of the Honolulu PD, was one of those stories from the war Dad and Kyrano _just couldn’t talk about._

WASP had seized The Conch as its Pacific Base during the war and had over time, built it up into a military and scientific centre second only to Marineville in importance. Its upper levels, once meant to be ballrooms and pleasure parlours, have been retrofitted into lecture halls and laboratories, while it’s middle levels house the Naval Academy and WASP’s West Pacific force. There isn’t a higher concentration of aquanautic expertise anywhere on the planet.

That it also seems to have the world’s highest concentration of humourless, paranoid, conspiracy nuts is just an unfortunate side effect.

The elevator doors slide open and he’s hit with a blast of cold air.

One of the many interesting things about the conch is that it is made of periwilyte, an organic polymer, grown rather than built. When exposed to sunlight, it turns every colour from coral to sunset pink, absorbs the sun’s heat and radiates it back at night.

But down here in the foundation levels, the walls have no heat or light to absorb and they remain stubbornly ash grey. It’s always cold down here and there’s always a sheen of condensation on the smooth walls. Pseuss hadn’t built the lower levels with comfort in mind.

He kicks open an access hatch and climbs down the ladder. It’s no mean feat while balancing two trays. “Hey, Phones. They were all out of the shrimp so I got you the chicken vindaloo. Can’t guarantee there’s any chicken in it, though.” He drops onto the deck.

Phones sits in his usual place, with his leg propped up on the bench and his ubiquitous headphones around his neck. “That’s okay, Coop. Just stick it here.”

Gordon had met Phones on his second evening in The Conch, when Interim Cadet Chief Tempest, annoyed at Cadet Waverly’s habit of popping up like a jackrabbit, had sent him to drop a package to Phones’ hidey hole.  
When Gordon had arrived, Phones had been using hydrophonics to track a pod of sperm whales fifty miles out. Gordon, fascinated, had mentioned seeing sperm whale skeletons in the natural history museum, and how he had noticed pitting almost identical to the ones human skeletons developed when they got the bends. Rather than dismissing him, Phones had put the sounds on the speakers for him to hear and Gordon had been able to stand transfixed for almost fifteen minutes, listening to the whale song.

Afterwards, they got chatting and Gordon had come up with some excuse to come back and see him the next night and to keep coming back. Phones is the senior officer in charge of the sonar and phonography archives, all housed in the lowest levels. He says he likes it down here, below sea level and away from all the chatter, that this is the best location for uninterrupted sound recordings and he has no interest in what’s going on in the upper levels. Still, it hadn’t taken Gordon long to figure out that with his gammy leg he was having a hard time getting up and down the access hatch, so Gordon had offered to bring him his meals.

It means a detour three times a day from his own mess to the officers’ mess to the lower levels, but it is absolutely worth it. Phones has rapidly jumped to the top of Gordon’s list of favourite people at WASP. He’s chilled out and funny in a way that's quite unlike anything else at WASP. He seems to have forgotten more about comms, navigation and marine geography than Gordon’s teachers ever knew, and best of all, the one time Gordon casually dropped the tuna men of Cape Cod into conversation he had rolled his eyes and murmured, ‘”Don’t believe everything you read, Coop.”

“How’s our girl?” Gordon asks, bringing the trays over and pulling up a stool. “Any movement?”

Phones had detected a pod of humpbacks overnight, including one cow close to the end of her 18 month gestational period. The signs he had picked up suggest the pod is getting ready for her labour. He’s hoping to record the birth.

“Still hanging in there,” says Phones, taking his tray.

Gordon sits and uncovers his own meal. Real meat is an officer’s privilege. NCOs and cadets dine on processed kelp. Tonight it’s been dyed and flavoured to look like a beef burger. It’s stone cold by now, but that hardly matters. Warm or cold, burger or spaghetti shaped, the kelp tastes mostly of beige.

Over dinner they talk sonography, and Phones looks over the problems he had set for Gordon the night before. Sonography is not part of the basic syllabus at WASP. It has little place in the modern navy since satellite multicountour geomapping took over, but Phones is passionate that it still has a place in submersible navigation and he’s teaching Gordon all about it.  

“No new problems, tonight,” he says, when he’s done correcting Gordon’s work. “You’re gonna have your hands full, anyway.”

Gordon groans. “Are you coming?”

“Temp’s trying to make me. But I don’t know, I’d rather stay here and listen out for my girl.” He runs a hand through the coarse ginger bristles sprouting like wheat stalks from the crown of his head and pushes his meal away. “You know, I think I’m full. D’you want my – Damn!”

He’s knocked his pudding cup from his tray and onto the floor. Custard goes everywhere. He tries to stand but his bad leg fails him and he collapses back into his chair. “Damn. Damn. Damn.”

“Here,” Gordon jumps down, grabs a cloth. “Don’t worry about it, Phones. It’s below your pay grade. Cleaning the deck is a swabbie’s job. Here.” He mops up the mess.

“Dammit,” Phones smacks his leg. “Don’t ever get sick, Coop. Ever.”

Phones doesn’t talk about his injury, though rumours abound. Fire. Flood. Shark. Fighting off a group of sexy mermaids.

Gordon had got the real story from one of the cooks in the officer’s mess. Lieutenant George “Phones” Sheridan was one of the best comms and navigations officers WASP had ever known. He had been assigned, not just as first officer of a STINGRAY class sub, but as the first officer of SHE, the prototype and most advanced of all the STINGRAY.

He had been injured last year in the North Shelf Catastrophe, when a chain reaction in the magmosphere had caused all the thermadon wells in the North Atlantic to go up at once. He’d been caught in an exploding rig and suffered a smashed pelvis, commuted tib-fibula break, shrapnel injury to the femoral nerve and extensive third degree burns. Had all this stopped him going back into the rig and carrying his unconscious partner out of the inferno? It had not.

The doctors had done their best with the burns. The fracture had set badly and had had to be surgically broken and reset. Nerve damage was permanent without triple crown health insurance. Phones had politely declined honourable discharge or extended shore leave, and as a compromise has been allowed to come here to supervise the archives. Once a day he struggles out of his bunker to the gym to spend an hour with the physio. The rest of the time he spends down here, mostly forgotten about, except by Cooper Waverly.

“You should get going,” says Phones when Gordon’s done ringing out the cloth in the sink. “You’re going to be needed up there soon.”

Gordon knows a dismissal when he hears it, and Phones is already putting back on his headphones. “Okay, call me if you need me.” He backs off, moving towards the rear bulkhead.

The other big benefit of befriending Phones is the use of one of the old archiving booths. As long as Gordon puts in a couple of hours cataloguing old recordings for the digital archive a week, he’s been allowed to make it his own personal space. At a luxurious three by three metres it’s got twice the space of his rack room and more importantly, uninterrupted and – with a little tinkering – completely unfettered comm access.

He boots up the holocomm. It’s so old it’s practically analogue. He’s been working on upgrading it with scavenged parts. It’s not the sort of work that falls within his area of expertise. As a kid he’d only ever been interested in DIY electronics if it could be used to melt something down, lock someone out or blow something up. But he’s been learning and, besides, he’s had help.

“Polar Research Centre from The Conch, do you read me?”

“Hi Cooper.” John’s image springs up beside him. He’s sitting cross legged on his bunk and wearing the pair of thermal pyjamas with the tasteful Starfleet logo that Alan got him for Christmas. “How was your day?”

“Amazing! Did you know Squidmen will lace the water with their eggs, and then their eggs will incubate in the warm squishy parts of your body, before rupturing your small intestine when they hatch, fully grown?” He grins.

John’s eyebrows go up but he doesn’t pass comment.

“That’s privileged information though, so don’t spread it around. We don’t want to cause a panic.”

“Right. I’ve got some more documents for you to look over.” There’s a data packet already coming down the link.

Gordon’s never shared a secret with John before. He’s shared secrets with Virgil. He’s shared _lots_ of secrets with Alan. He’s even shared secrets with Scott, though usually of the ‘Tell anyone you saw me sneak out and I will fly you out to the most desolate, shark-infested waters I can find and _strand_ you there on a rock! See how you like swimming then,’ variety. But sharing a secret with John, something precious, something just between the two of them, that’s a whole new experience.

It’s cool.

It’s also very, very hard work. Most other people’s secrets don’t come with homework.

“John, what even is this?” He thumbs through the dense text file John’s just dumped into his data tree. “A form of torture?”

They have been meeting up twice a day for never less than thirty minutes and never more than an hour, to go over things and make plans. There’s a seven hour time difference between WASP and the polar research centre, so John calls Gordon at twenty three hundred each night, just as his day is ending and John’s waking up, and Gordon calls him back at seventeen hundred each evening, when its mess time for Gordon and John’s in his bunk.

John is – well to be honest Gordon’s sort of in awe of John. It’s like John’s been preparing for this his whole life… which, okay, yeah maybe he actually has. Maybe they’ve all been preparing for this their whole lives and Dad just, whoops, forgot to tell any of them, but if Gordon’s been preparing for this his whole life, well he certainly doesn’t _feel_ prepared.

John, on the other hand, seems like he’s just been waiting for Dad to flip the switch. He’s got charts and lists and diagrams and _opinions_ about everything.  How many category one hurricanes are predicted to occur each year for the next five years? John knows. What’s the maximum time an astronaut can be active in a high stress environment without needing to sleep? John knows. What’s the best way to triage patients after an earthquake when the risk of aftershocks makes the environment hazardous? John knows that too.

For his part, Gordon’s contributed a fitness and dietary regime for them both, which John has adhered to, though sometimes through gritted teeth. He’s also been doing some research on new smart fabrics and thermoregulating climate suits, which he thinks could come in handy if they’re out in all sorts of conditions. Finally, he has created a kickass playlist, which John somehow hasn’t appreciated and _probably hasn’t even listened too._

So, it’s a work in progress, okay?

“It’s the International Aviation Authority Pilot Handbook.” John tells him.

“Memorise it. There’s an IAA exam centre in Honolulu, they’re conducting the written exam for Instruments Certification in three weeks. I’ve signed you up.”

Gordon does his best impression of one of Phones’ sperm whales. More exams. “Do I have to? I’m training to be an aquanaut. You know, under water? Shouldn’t I focus on that first and leave the piloting stuff until next year? I mean, if there’s one thing this family isn’t short of– ”

John rolls his eyes. “You’ve got a sports’ licence, Gor – Cooper. Not even a private licence. A sports’ licence. Redundancy is going to be our biggest weakness, because we’ll have none. Only 19 per cent of category one catastrophes used or could have used a submersible last year. Of all of us you’re going to have to be the most flexible so you can assist the pilot of Craft Two.”

It was John who first adopted referring to the craft by number based on estimated registration date, but by unspoken consensus neither of them refer to the organisation’s other potential members as anything other than the pilots of one, two and three. Never Scott and Virgil, definitely never Alan.  

“Whatever you say, boss,” Gordon files the handbook away for future study. “Hey, how did the meeting go?”

It’s always fun to watch John squirm. “Not bad.”

That first night, after they had agreed, that yes, they both really wanted to do this, no matter what Scott said, no matter what _Dad_ said, they had stayed up all night cataloguing Gordon, his strengths, his weaknesses, his current assets, projects and flaws. It had been an excruciating night.

John’s reciprocal self-assessment had come two nights later. It had taken some cajoling because John had insisted “I already know my flaws”, and it had been almost as awful for Gordon as his own audit. He had always known big brother was accomplished but seeing _all_ his achievements listed together was an exercise in making Gordon feel small.

But looking past that, Gordon had quickly seen what John seemed to be blind to, that John’s supervisor and his fellow researchers at the Polar Centre were taking _mondo_ advantage of him. With much pushing, John had finally confronted his supervisor today.”

“I’ve told him that I’m off-loading the extra project work back to Glynne and Ditmas, that I’ll continue to work in an advisory capacity but I’m done doing any data collection for them.”

“Good.”

“And he’s agreed he’s going to let me shuttle home two days in twenty for flight and sim training. Also, I’ve asked him to move my thesis defence up to June.”

“Seriously? With all that other stuff you’ve got to do?”

“I think with the extra work off my back I should be finished in time.”

“Rather you than me, John.”

He removes his jacket and tosses it up on the hammock behind him. He had strung it up a couple of days ago. It’s not that he’s sleeping here, or anything, that would be against regulations, but sometimes Phones needs him, like three nights ago when he’d sent him that emergency message at two AM and Gordon had come down from quarters to find him lying trapped between the toilet and the sink. He had picked him up and helped him back to his bunk, helped bandage the bleeding cut over his left eye and cleaned up the piss on the floor. The lieutenant had just kept repeating over and over, “Sorry, Coop, sorry. Temp couldn’t come. Sorry, Coop.”

And Phones doesn’t seem to mind that he’s put up the hammock and moved a few things down here, just for convenience sake. It’s a nice spot to do his reading in anyway. He’s got a lot of reading to do, thanks to John.

“You ready for tonight?” he asks John.

John gives another long suffering sigh. “I’m just going to say again, for the record, I think the best solution to this problem would be for you to develop a brief bout of norovirus. A saline solution mixed with soda flakes would cause you to vomit in a realistic–”

Gordon utters his most sinister laugh. “Okay, one, I can’t believe _you’re_ telling _me_ how to fake being sick. Two, I’m not drinking soda flakes, and three, if I fake norovirus now then how am I going to fake it next time there’s something I actually don’t want to go to? Besides, we’ve got to try this sooner or later, right?”

“This?”

“Us. Team Tracy. Ugh, we really need a better name. _The T Team. The Badasses. The Fly (And swim) By Night’s.”_

“We’re not an indie garage band, Gordon. And this is not our specialty, not either of our specialities.”

“But it’s a good preliminary test. Come on, John. A good system is founded on beta-testing. And it’ll be fun.”

"It won't be fun."

"Where's your spirit of adenture? Okay, I better go hit the showers."

Exactly 85 minutes later – he knows because John counts – he’s standing in the corner of the Seriously Salmon ballroom, trying to blend in.

Twice a year, WASP holds a grand gala at the Conch and invites investors and dignitaries from around the world. By tradition, cadets are expected to serve at the gala, handing out drinks and canapes, which is why Gordon is here tonight, scratching at the neck of his dress uniform, trying not to get caught eating the shrimp tails in bacon off his silver platter, and more importantly trying not to get ID-ed by some industrialist or ex-astronaut with a knack for faces.

The other reason he’s here is to see if they can work, just him and John, without Virgil the human insulating tape lying between them to stop them sparking off each other, without Scott the lightning rod, drawing fire. It’s a test run to see what it’s like for him to manage a situation with John in his ear, for John to have to direct him from afar, direct him at all. They’ve got to know if they’re going to be able to do this or the whole show falls apart.

That’s why he’s got a tiny plastic receiver in his left ear, a glob of transmission gum stuck to his hard palette and a microcam tucked into his button hole.

“At your two o’clock the Dean of Marine Sciences at MIT is talking to Admiral Colchester. Neither of them have a reason to know you. Should be safe.”

“Understood,” Gordon murmurs and makes a beeline for the Admiral’s group.“Shrimp, Ma’am? Shrimp, Admiral? It’s our finest.”

“Now turn 45 degrees, I want to catalogue the group in the north quarter of the room.”

“Mm-hmm.” He turns slowly, careful not to bump into cadet Schooley with his platter of crab cakes. “Where did you say you got this spy stuff again?”

“My roommate at MIT. He designed them. The US army offered him a huge contract for the patent.”

“So this is army grade stuff?”

“Not exactly. Elrond’s an anarchist. He wouldn’t sell. He tells me he mostly uses it to coach frat pledges through talking to girls. Don’t touch your ear.”

“I’m not,” says Gordon, quickly lowering his hand, making another pass at handing around his platter to a group John has designated safe. “Where next?”

“Make your way towards the stage and – Left! Left! Right now.”

John’s shout in his ear is deafening. It causes Gordon to swerve and almost drop his tray. Half the remaining shrimp are airborne. He ducks behind a palm tree. “What? What?!”

“At your ten.”

Gordon lifts a palm frond. The first thing he sees is a perfectly formed blonde in a lavender gown, chatting to Captain Tempest.

“Yep, Johnny. I approve. You’ve got good taste.”

“Grow up, Cooper.” He can hear the barely checked irritation in John’s voice. “Beside her.”

The blonde lightly touches the arm of a fair-haired man with a narrow moustache and impeccable bearing.

“Yeah, I see him.”

“That’s Lord Hugh Creighton Ward. He’s an old friend of Dad’s. You need to avoid him at all costs.”

“You think he could ID me?”

“Highly possible. He’s met all five of us personally on multiple occasions. _You’ve_ even been to his country estate.”

This rings faint bells for Gordon, not all together pleasant ones. He peers at the knockout in lavender. “Did he have a kid? A girl.”

“Yes. One daughter, Penelope. Currently in her last year at Oxford.” He pretends he is imagining the trickle of amusement in John’s voice. “I think she was the one –”

“She was a hoity-toity little princess, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Gordon says quickly. “Okay, two high risk targets. I’ll avoid.”

“Also steer clear of Admiral Teiu, blue uniform at your seven o’clock. You two have never met in person, but you beat his former boyfriend Tomasu Sato in your heat at the World Championships last year.”

“Roger.” He takes another peek at Penelope Creighton-Ward. She certainly is a looker – if you know, you like that frosty British princess thing, which he doesn’t.

“And Cooper…”

Someone clears her voice loudly right in Gordon’s other ear. With a sinking feeling he turns to find himself being eyeballed coldly.

“Watch out for Rear Admiral Shore.”

Rear Admiral Shore is the Conch’s acting Commander of Operations and has a reputation as a premier league ball buster. She’s a redhead too, his life seems chock full of them lately. She’s giving him that hard look. “Do we think we are a monitor lizard, Cadet?”

“No, Admiral.”

“A type of exotic newt?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Then kindly stop examining the shrubbery and get back to your post.”

“Yes, Admiral.” He looks down at his almost empty platter. “Just going to restock, ma’am.”

“Then do so.”

He makes for the kitchen and can feel her gimlet eye on him the entire time.

He picks up a fresh platter of shrimp at the pass and is hurrying back to the ballroom when he hears the sounds of someone sobbing. He pauses.

“You picking that up?” he asks.

“Someone’s crying.” John’s voice is flat. “A girl.”

“Nothing gets past you. I’m going to go check it out. She may be a damsel in distress.” He starts to hum ‘The Boys are Back in Town’ – that was on the playlist – and follows the sound of the crying. The acoustics in the access corridors amplifies the noise, and he is able to follow it right back to its source.

There’s a girl huddled in a corner outside a utilities closet, sobbing. With a lurch of his heart he realises it’s Red. He stops humming.

“Cooper, you’re going to be missed if you don’t get back,” John, as usual, has the emotional sensitivity of a ball bearing.

“Give me a minute.”

“Cooper, seriously.”

Red raises her head when she sees him coming and quickly tries to ring out her eyes, pretend like she hasn’t been crying. “Hi… sorry… I was just…” She gives a wet sniff and slides up the wall. “I was taking five.”

“You okay? Did something happen?”

“No. I’m fine.” She snatches up her tray of champagne flutes. “I’ve got to get back. These won’t serve themselves, so…”

“Hey,” he coaxes her. “Hey, it’s okay. You can tell me. We’re friends right?”

“Are we?” Her lip trembles

“Sure, think of all those long minutes spent in access corridors together. And here we are again, in an access corridor. Must be fate, right?”

This gets a watery chuckle from her.

“I can’t believe you’re flirting right now,” says John in his ear.

“Shut up.”

“What?” Red blinks at him, taken aback.

“Oh, uh, nothing. Are you okay?” he asks her again. “Did something happen.”

The lip tremble is back again. “I’m fine. It’s just… It’s just…”

And then suddenly she’s crying again, trying to hold it in, failing miserably. Her shoulders shake in great, noisy, hiccupy sobs.

“Oh great,” mutters John. “You broke her.”

Gordon pats her shoulder, wonders whether it would be okay to stroke her hair. His hand is inching towards her neck when Red blurts out, “It’s Rear Admiral Shore. She’s just so… so mean.” She covers her mouth if this is a truth too awful to contemplate. “I’m sorry.”

Gordon grins. “Can’t fault you for the truth, you know.”

“’She said I was a disgrace, ‘coz I couldn’t do my job, just because I broke one stupid glass. She said… she said that if that was my attitude then maybe I wasn’t cut out for WASP.” She begins to sob again.

“Hey,” he puts his arm on her shoulder. “Hey, come on. It’s okay. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s a grade A bitch.”

“But she’s Commander of the Conch. And she’s Commander Shore’s daughter. She’ll have me drummed out of WASP. And it’s only my first day.”

“No she won’t. Don’t worry. You know what I think? I think Rear Admiral Shore could do with a lesson in manners.” He grins.

John’s already nagging in his ear. “Gordon, I mean Cooper, under no circumstances, under no circumstances are you to do what I think you’re thinking.”

But Red is looking at him as if this is the most audacious, terrifying thing she’s ever heard. “You don’t mean… you don’t mean playing a trick on Rear Admiral Shore, do you?”

“No. He doesn’t mean that. You definitely do not mean that. Gordon!”

“But that’s nutso,” she says. “They’ll put us in the clink. Or they’ll discharge us.”

Gordon turns the wattage on his grin all the way up to eleven. “Only if we get caught.”

* * *

“Gordon, you cannot do this. You cannot do this. You’re jeopardising everything you worked for to impress some girl.”

Gordon pulls the receiver out of his ear and deposits it in a particularly unloved platter of lobster mousse.

He looks around the room with the jaundiced eye of a professional. There’s not enough time to pull an Uncle Bumbly, and a Bourke and Hare would only get him court-marshalled. He could try a Mary Jane but it’s unlikely he’ll be able to get his hands on a gallon of cold mushroom soup and an emu at such short notice. Damn.

Red comes to stand beside him. “What are we going to do?” she asks. Her elbow, the one holding the tray, brushes his sleeve. In that one spot he can feel heat like a miniature sun.

“Something,” he says. “Definitely something.”

Rear Admiral Shore is crossing the room, hand outstretched, to greet a tiny woman surrounded by a phalanx of very big sturdy men.

“That’s Baroness Keeling, the British Military Consul,” says Red. “I heard the chefs inside talking about her.”

That’s when inspiration strikes. Gordon grins. “We’re going to pull a Shirley Temple.”

It’s a delicate twostep of timing and precision, a Jacob’s ladder where everyone needs to seem to move perfectly without actually moving at all. He jostles and nudges and carefully guides the necessary pieces around the room, and just has to hope that none of them will turn around and say,

“Gordon Tracy. What are you doing here? You know, your Dad absolutely screwed me over during our last contract negotiation.”

He wrangles a couple of Lieutenants, move a celebrity physicist or two back a couple of steps with a well-placed tray of mimosas and then, when everything is lined up perfectly, he taps an Indian general on the shoulder and says smartly, “Excuse me, Admiral Charleston. I have a message for you, Sir, from your wife.”

“I am not Admiral Charleston,” says the general, turning away. But it’s already too late, because a professor of linguistics has moved out of the way of his elbow, causing her to jostle the hand of the cadet behind her, who just manages to save his tray, but bumps into the senior waiter just behind him.  
Like dominos the pieces fall, a thrill running through the room as the chain reaction winds its way towards Admiral Shore and the consul. Gordon buttons his grin again, and slips through the crowds, so he can get a better view.

The consul is handing over a silver thumb drive to Admiral Shore, and the attention of her entire bodyguard is on the exchange, so none of them notice the frission in the room. Gordon has time to wonder what’s on the thumb drive, to consider that maybe this is a bad idea, when the apogee of the reaction hits.

Admiral Roman, over-reaching for his drink, because his waiter’s jacket has snagged on a Captain’s ceremonial sword, stumbles forward, tries to reach out for a table he was leaning on, only to find it’s been tweaked six inches to his left, and stumbles into the Rear Admiral, who is pushed forward and spills her entire drink onto the head of the British Consul.

She tries to backpedal, wipe it off, looking around for someone to blame, just as Captain Tempest, sits down on the buffet table, carefully sabotaged by Red, and an entire basin of boulabaisse into the air and rain over Admiral Shore and the consul.

The phlanax take most of the fire for the consul, but the Admiral is drenched from head to toe. The Consul squeals. “This is Vintage Westwood!”

Gordon looks around for his partner in crime, and to his alarm sees she has waded into the middle of the mess. Not the plan. Not the plan at all.  
He deposits his tray on a table and pushes through the crowd to reach them.

The plan was a distant sniping. No direct contact, but now Red is trying to wipe the Admiral’s face with a pilfered table cloth as the consul shrieks.

In his rush Gordon bumps headlong into someone. It’s the girl in the lavender dress, Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward. She gives him a cool, penetrating look and for a second he’s got that heart-stopping feeling that he’s been rumbled. “Pardon me, your Ladyship.” He hurries on.

A comedy pratfall gets him into the heart of the mess. Two bodyguards go to grab him, and it’s hardly his fault when this only leads to them bumping heads, and sending more off the buffet into orbit, to rain down softly on surrounding guests.

He seizes Red. “With your permission, Admiral. We’ll get some towels so we can clean up.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer. Red allows him to take her hand and a moment later they’re out of there and hurrying across the ballroom floor. He pulls her towards the main door.

Just as he reaches the door his gaze falls on one of the security monitors. The screen flashes blue and then a photo is thrown up on the monitor.

It’s a grainy still shot, blurred by motion artifact. His own foot is visible in it and so is a bodyguard’s meaty bicep. It appears to have been taken while he was on the floor. It must have been pulled directly off Gordon’s microcam, still nestled in his buttonhole. Below the time stamp are the initials JGT.

It’s gone before he can even begin to register that it’s real, but it clearly shows Red, palming a thumb drive. The same thumb drive the consul had just handed to Rear Admiral Shore.

Oh no.

Right at the same moment the muted strains of Pacobel’s Canon are replaced by Nick Jonas singing “ _Stars”_ at glass shattering volume, from the live recording of the 50th Anniversary performance of _Les Miserables_.

  
Gordon knows the song too well, has heard it enough times. It’s the one album Dad has absolutely banned from being played in the house. Even a couple of bars is enough to plunge Virgil into a fugue of gloom and Symphony No. 5 for days. Inez Lin, head of the drama club, for whom Virgil had pined, longed and learned the entire part of Javert, had dumped him for Jean Valjean on opening night. He has never gotten over it.

“Virgil, you’re sweet,” she had told him as his entire family watched, “And you’ve a great baritone and I knew I’d never get you up on stage if you didn’t think I liked you back.”

Gordon’s heart drops. He knows exactly what John’s trying to tell him. “Okay, Johnny,” He says as the sound engineer gets things back under control. “I get the picture.”

He follows Red out into the corridor and lets them get far enough away from the ballroom before he catches her arm. “Hold up a second.”

She turns and beams at him, a smile that could melt his heart. He steadies himself. “That was wicked. You’re a pro, Coop. When you – And she – Mint!”

 _Careful. Careful_. “Thanks,” he says, reaches into the pocket of her dress uniform and removes the thumb drive.

“Heyyy…” She trails off when she sees what he’s got.

“What the hell is this?” he says, all business. “This is classified, important stuff. Did you steal this?”

Her eyes drop to the floor. Her shoulders drop too. She looks devastated. “Yah. No. Maybe. I dunno. It was just there, right? Admiral Shore dropped it, and she made me so gawdam mad and I thought, well what’s the harm, right? Maybe she loses it for a while. Maybe she learns her lesson.”

“Or maybe she puts the whole place in lockdown, there’s a diplomatic incident and we’re both arrested.” He pockets the drive. “We don’t know what’s on this. It could be serious shit.”

There’s that lip tremble again. “’msorry. I didn’t think. I’m so stupid.”

“We’ve got to put this back now. You know that, right?”

She gives a small, troubled nod. “I’m so sorry. You’ve been so nice and kind and now I’m gonna get you in trouble. And all you ever did was try to help me. And I never even thanked you properly. Oh Cooper!”

She flings herself into his arms, trembling like a leaf.

She’s warm and soft and tiny, one of his arms could go around her entire body, no problem. And she turns her face up to him and looks at him with those eyes…

And suddenly he’s thinking about Marsha Dansk, who had kissed him in front of ten thousand people after she won her heat at nationals and Kaitlyn O’Keeffe who had bits of purple gummy bears wedged into her train tracks, and Sarah Whatshername, whom he had been so sure was crushing on Virgil until the moment she dragged him into that coat closet and…

…And what is he doing thinking about all of them when this girl is in his arms right here, right now and she’s warm and tender and looking at him like… like…?

…Like he’s the biggest idiot who has ever lived.

With a dull _clunk_ the handcuffs go around the utility pipe behind his head. He didn’t even notice them going around his wrist. She gives him a soft peck on the cheek even as her left hand reaches into his pocket and fishes out the thumb drive.

“Hey!”

With his free hand he swipes at her, but she darts nimbly out of his reach.

“It’s been tremendous fun, darling, but I really do have to go,” she says, in a voice that’s not the least bit uncertain, or, for that matter, even the slightest bit Bostonian. Her vowels are suddenly pure cut glass.

Oh shit.

“Oh shit.”

“Language, sweetheart.” She taps him on the nose with the tip of her index finger. “What would your mother say?”

He jangles the cuffs as he tries to make a grab for her, to rip free of the wall. _Anything_. But she’s too quick and the cuffs are the standard issue, heavy-duty carbon used for prisoner transfer. She must have swiped them off one of the security agents. “I’m gonna–! Lemme go!”

“Love to, but I’ve got a boat to catch and I really must dash. Thanks ever so much for your help.” She gives him a little wave and darts away.  

“Hey! **Hey!** ”

He hangs against the wall, thumps his fist against his forehead a couple of times because he’s a total patsy and he deserves it, then tries to think what to do. Goddamit, why hadn’t he listened to John? God, he thinks, he is going to be unbearable after this.  

There’s a security hub halfway down the corridor, but for his purposes right now it might as well be on the dark side of the moon. The useless things don’t even have voice recognition. He could yell for help, rouse whatever security force is around, and, well, good luck explaining why you’re tied to a pipe, _Cadet Waverly._

He thinks about knocking out a message on the pipe in Morse code. The utility pipes go everywhere. There’s a good chance they could transmit the sound pretty far and that Phones might hear.

But as nice a guy as Phones is, and as much as he likes Gordon, if he busts him having committed _actual espionage_ he is going to report him up the chain.

“Goddammit. Johnny, if you can hear me, I’m sorry and you were right and you are awesome and I’ll never not listen to you again, and if there’s anything you can do to get me out of here, I would really, _really_ appreciate it.”

There’s silence, but Gordon can’t help but feel it’s a pointed sort of silence, the silence of a raised eyebrow.

Then the security hub, in tinny, bleeping tones, begins to crank out a musak version of _Wouldn’t it Be Nice_ by the _Beach Boy_ s.  

“Ho. Ho. You’re such a comedian.”

But then it dawns on him what John’s trying to say. Lock picking was never a formal part of Gordon’s education, but when you’ve got an older brother who insists on locking away his game console, his camera and his vintage record collection, just because you used _Pet Sounds_ as a Frisbee one time when you were 11, knowing your way around a lock becomes a handy skill to have in your back pocket.

And because Virgil is a devious bastard whose idea of fun it is to construct harder and harder locks just to see if you can break them, he had had to upskill quickly. There’s been a padlock with perpendicular magnetic tumblers hanging off his bathroom door for nine months now. It seals a toy plastic egg in which are the twenty bucks Virg bet him that he couldn’t open it. It’s a twenty bucks he’s planning to win.  

He examines the lock on the cuffs with a practiced eye. It’s a standard double lock with a detente. Doable, with the right set of tools. The only problem is…

“Navel cadets don’t usually carry lock picks on our person, Johnny.”

A moment, and then the tune being piped from the comm unit switches to _The Flight of the Bumblebee._

“Very funn –Oh!”

Because there’s a black and gold buttonhole tucked into his dress uniform, the same buttonhole he had carefully wrapped up in wire to make doubly sure his micro-cam doesn’t fall out.

“John, you’re kind of a genius.”

He pulls the microcam out first and tucks the slender wand behind his ear, so his brother can have a good view. Then using his free hand and his teeth he begins to unwrap the wire and bend it into a makeshift tension wrench.

* * *

“’Scuse me, coming through. ‘Scuse me.”

He runs through the dawn tinted corridors of the Conch, every door sliding open ahead of him as John digs into WASP’s systems.

Cooper Waverly knows very little about spy shit. But he does know a little about tides. And Gordon Cooper, his grandma’s best student, knows a lot about bluffing. The Conch can only be reached by boat at certain specific times. It was built that way.

He makes for the helipad.

He bumps and shoves his way through a crowd of annoyed servicemen.

“’Scuse me. Move please. We’ve pinpointed the… er… the Bermuda Triangle. I must inform Captain Tempest at once.”

“Didn’t we find that already?” He hears a corporal murmur as he runs past.

He finds her in one of the access corridors just off the helipad, disposing of her uniform down a recycling chute. She’s changed into a fitted grey dress, with one of those neat little white collars  that makes her look all demure and schoolgirly, and okay, if he’s being honest with himself, also kind of amazing. _But that is not the point._

“Hey, you. Freeze!” _Hee, awesome._

But she only smirks and looks him up and down. “You’re more resourceful than I gave you credit for. How interesting.” She raises one eyebrow. “And who’s your friend?”

He touches his ear where John’s wand is sitting. “ _My friend_ has been filming your every antic. Lift one finger and he’ll post the footage to the web for everyone to see. He’ll bring the entire security force down on your head.” He has no idea if John can do this. If his powers are limited to playing tinned versions of popular musicals and twentieth century pop hits. But it sounds good. “You’re going to give me back that disk.” He jabs a finger at her.  
With a small frown, she steps back from him. He makes a lunge for her, grabbing her elbow.

_And, oh come on!_

He is _an athlete_. He was going to _The Olympics._ He can bench press three hundred pounds. He can do four hundreds squats without stopping. She’s maybe ninety pounds soaking wet and he could swallow both her hands in one of his. So how come he’s the one who suddenly finds himself with his face smooshed against the wall?

“Now you really are going to have to calm down.” And it’s so unfair, because her voice is cool and treacherous and totally infuriating so why is it still the sexiest thing he’s ever heard in his life?  “Or I’ll have to put you to sleep.”

“MMMPH!? Mmmph-mmph?”

He can almost hear the eye roll in her voice. “Not remotely what I meant. Now, I’m going to ease up a little, be a good boy and don’t scream.”

The pressure eases off, at least enough that he can get his tongue out from between his teeth. “You can’t take that disk!”

“Can’t I? What are you going to do about it?” Her fingers play with his hair.

“I…I’m gonna…”

“If I could make a suggestion,” she says, “You could scream. Deputy Commander Roman and his personal guard are less than thirty metres down that corridor. If you shout they’ll hear you. You could raise the alarm. Cause a major diplomatic incident. Save the day. Be the hero of the hour. And I’m sure when everything is settled down your seniors will turn to each other and say, ‘we should commend this brave cadet. Just who is this _Cooper Waverly_?’”

Aw crap.

“Or, you could let me go about my business and you can go about yours and no one has to be any the wiser. Doesn’t that sound like something that might be more beneficial to us both?”

He nods.

“Very sensible.” She eases up a little more.

He sucks in a deep breath. “Hey! Help! Over he-”

She dings his head so hard against the wall that his _thoughts_ ring and he’s not even sure if he just imagines her saying, “A brain and a conscience, what am I going to do with you two?”

There’s a quiet moment. A perfectly manicured finger taps the wall to his left. “Alright, junior-”

_“Mmf-mu?!”  
_

“New deal. I will return the disk to you and in return you and _your friend_ will let me waltz right out of here. No harm. No fuss. What do you think?”

He growls and tries to shake her off. “Why should I believe you?”

“This is a limited time offer, darling. Otherwise you’re going down the rubbish chute in three, two, one…” She dangles the disk in front of his nose.

He nods and she eases up again, holds the disk out in an open palm.

He snatches it and stuffs it back into his jacket pocket. “You’re crazy, lady.”

“And you’re a little bit brave. And more moral than I gave you credit for. Who are you, _really?_ ”

“Like I’d tell you!” He blurts and knows from her widening smile that this is the wrong answer.

“I think you mean, ‘I’m Cooper Waverly, WASP cadet, Ma’am,’ Don’t you?’”

“Right. Yeah.” His head is pounding. What he wants right now is to be as far away as possible, to be back in the archive eating kelp noodles and getting chewed out by John. He tries to back away, but her hand slips through his.

“I don’t think so. You’re going to escort me out. It wouldn’t do for a lady to be wandering around WASP unaccompanied.”

“Forget-”

Her grip is reinforced iridium. “Think what mischief she might get up to. And I want to make sure you don’t try anymore funny business. Come along, Cadet. It’s only proper.” She leads him down the corridor her arm linked in his. Her fingers stroke is sleeve.

He glowers at her.

“Oh do lighten up,” she’s smiling at him from under lowered lashes. “It’s fun.”

“Oh yeah, it’s real fun.”

A pair of soldiers pass them in the corridor and nod politely at her. She smiles back. “Don’t you want to know what’s on the disk?”

“No.”

She laughs again and he glares at her. “You’re a little bit sensitive, aren’t you?” Her finger strokes the ball of his thumb.

“Hey, knock it off.” He shakes her off.

.“It’s just a game, you know. WASP want a piece of intelligence that the British Government have and the British Government is of course only delighted to provide it to WASP. If WASP were to _lose_ that piece of information once it is in their possession, well the British government can’t be held accountable for that, can they?”

“You expect me to believe that you tried to steal back your own intelligence? So WASP couldn’t have it?”

“Or so WASP would have to ask again and owe us a favour. It is a game of favours.”

“Like I’m going to believe– ”

Except… Except Hugh Creighton-Ward. Well-heeled. Seasoned diplomat. Above suspicion.

_Dad’s friend.  
_

_Oh._

So this girl works for Lord Creighton Ward?

But suddenly he’s struck by a memory so strongly that he stops dead, pulling her out of step too. Limpid blue eyes, a perfectly pressed pink and gold dress, and a visit to the country that had ended with him somehow being blamed for pushing someone’s Nanny in the duck pond and eating an entire chocolate cake.

 _Oh_.

“You! You’re - But that girl with him at the party-” He’s blurting again.

She’s entirely unfazed. “Oh, that’s Danielle, my father’s secretary. She’s my Sydney Carton. Or rather, I hope I am Sydney.”

“You hope you’re going to get your head chopped off? Me too!”

This delights her. “We look enough alike to confuse matters. Obfuscation is key. Plausible deniability. Maybe it was me who was with my father. Then again, maybe it was Danielle.” Those perfect lips turn up in a smile. “Who can say? But I hope you’re happy,” she says. “Now it means Scotland for the summer with Aunt Constance and dreadful Cousin Reggie following me about and trying to show me his antler collection.” She shudders.

“That must be so difficult for you.” He shakes his head. “This is crazy. What sort of a Dad is okay with their kid being a… deceitful… manipulative… spy… manipulator…person?” Oh God.

Her lips purse for a moment. Then she laughs. “Of course he’s not okay with it. He’d rather I went into fashion or publishing or some other equally tedious occupation. But he’d rather deal with the daughter he has and make sure she’s safe and good at her job then waste his time wishing for the daughter he doesn’t. ”

And _goddammit_ because he’s not going to learn anything from this lying, deceitful, chocolate cake eating polecat, except possibly, that redheads are not to be trusted.

They’ve reached the door to the helipad. This time she’s the one to stop. She laughs. “Why, I almost forgot.”

She reaches up and with a shake of her head the red hair comes away. A kinetic tangle of long blonde curls tumble to her shoulders, catching the light like a cornfield in summer.

This is…

This is…

_So not fair._

The wig is cast aside as swiftly as Cooper Waverly’s obsession with redheads. “Come along.” She leads him outside.

The wind is up on the helipad and it leaves Gordon feeling cold and exposed, but not as exposed as the gaze of the man watching him from halfway across the tarmac. There’s a dozen people on the helipad, including Rear Admiral Shore and half a dozen WASP top brass, but it’s the dapper man with his foot half poised on the step leading to the RAF tigerfly that pulls Gordon’s attention. Lord Creighton-Ward is a smaller man than Gordon’s father and his fair hair is only just starting to fade to grey. Still, Gordon is reminded immediately of Dad.

Red must sense his hesitation, the sudden lead weight in his steps, because she glances over at him and squeezes his arm. “It really is alright. I won’t give you away.”

Gordon gives a tight nod. He is trying think himself into the role of Cooper Waverly. To be that guy, obedient, humourless, dull, the ideal WASP candidate. To be forgettable. It’s been years since he last met Lord Creighton Ward, not since he was an acne pocked, hyperactive tween. There’s no reason his Lordship would have reason to remember him. _Just brazen it out. It’ll be okay._

“Darling, we’ve been waiting.”

“Sorry, Papa,” Red looks contrite. “I’m afraid I wanted to see the aquarium and I got all turned around. This is Cadet Cooper Waverly, Papa. He was kind enough to escort me.”

“Good afternoon, _Cadet Waverly_ ,” Lord Creighton-Ward holds out a hand and without missing a beat he adds, “And congratulations on your recent victory. A national gold medal, wasn’t it?”

Okay, so much for brazening it out then.

Rather than taking his hand, Gordon salutes. “Thank you, Sir.” He is at least given the satisfaction of seeing a fleeting moment of puzzlement crease Red’s dark brows.

“Shall I send your regards to your father when I see him next?” asks Lord Creighton Ward.

“I’d rather you didn’t, Sir.”

What Lord Creighton Ward thinks about this is totally impossible to gauge because he immediately turns to Red, “Penny, we really must go. We need to be in Washington by six.”

“Yes, Papa.”

Red – Penny – whatever – turns to face him, and – he can hardly credit it – actually blushes. “Thank you _so much_ , Cadet Waverly,” she gushes.

“Yes Ma’am,” says Cooper Waverly under the watchful gaze of his superiors.

“Just doing my duty, Ma’am.”

“Well, goodbye.” She turns towards her father and then stops, turns back and with all the giddiness and impulsiveness of a young girl with a crush on a man in uniform, she throws her arms around him in a quick embrace.

He doesn’t feel her hand slip into his inner pocket and remove the disk. But, well, he’s not an idiot.

“Hey!” But everyone is watching. His jaw clicks shut.

She flashes a wicked smile that’s just for him and then becomes the soul of demure embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she turns to Gordon’s superior. “Thank you for your hospitality, Admiral Roman.”

Then she steps lightly onto the chopper. The WASP officers are already turning away, losing interest. Cadet Waverly remains standing to attention on the helipad, waiting to be dismissed.

It’s all Gordon Tracy who runs forward as close as the corona of moving blades will let him, and yells “Hey, Lady Penelope!”

She’s already seated, legs delicately crossed at the ankle. She’s not looking at him and the whirring blades slice his words to pieces and in a second she’s going to be snatched away and that’ll be it.

But then she looks up and her eyes find his. She mouths something at him. Maybe, “See you next time.” Maybe not.

There’s no smiling at WASP, he does so anyway.

* * *

True to form, Johnny spends the next half hour chewing him out. “You dumped your earpiece! Into a salmon mousse platter!”

“It was lobster. And I got it back.” He had too, though he had almost swallowed the thing sucking the mousseline de honard off its shell. “And I think for our first run, it wasn’t too bad. I think I’d give us an eight out of ten.”  
“Eight out of ten? You actively assisted in the theft of state secrets. We could be both had up for treason.” It’s fun to wind John up.

“Yeah, but we almost got them back, we only lost them at the very last minute. That’s why I’m deducting a point. Also one for your choice of music.”

“I hate you.”

Gordon beams. “I know, right? But…”

“But what?”

“But it went okay, right? We’re still good? You and me? We’re still on. We’re still doing this, right? Right.”

“No.” says John. “Absolutely not. Categorically not. It’s a crazy unworkable idea, and we’re done.”

“Oh.”

“Also,” he sighs. “I think we’re going to have to talk to Dad about hiring someone to look after the espionage side of things. It’s really not something any of us are cut out for.”


End file.
